Posts Tagged ‘Office of Economic’

Now you kids are too young to remember, but back in the day Furniture Mart was the thang, full of visiting Midwestern honeys ready to par-tay in the 415. Good times.

But really, the reason why all those Midwest farmers daughters came back to San Francisco all those years, well it had to do with history, the history of when the 415 was the Capital of the West as opposed to Just Another Ci-tay Near the West Coast, you know, beneath L.A., Fun Diego, San Hoser, Seattle and Portland (yes, sometimes even Portland).

Answer: It _is_ corporate welfare, the practice of government picking corporate winners and losers, something any govmint isn’t really so hot at doing. Oh well.

“Corporate Welfare – Free Market Fundamentalism often leads to corporate welfare because deregulated markets often allow corporations to become so overgrown, even to the point of monopoly, that their influence over the government balloons and balloons. They can game the system so that government programs end up funneling money straight into their own pockets.”

Is the Furniture Mart building covered in this deal? Don’t know. It shouldn’t be.

As seen from Fell Street. They used to have furniture shows here twice a year, don’t know if they still do.

What’s that? You say, “This boondoggle isn’t just for Twitter?”

Oh yes it is! Right now it is, anyway. Next question.

“But this scheme is ‘revenue neutral’ right?”

Nooope.

“But at least we saved the Twitter from moving away.”

Uh, maybe. The problem with the proposed corporate welfare is that it won’t save Twitter all that much money. So it’s like the Mayor recently signing up for the Twitter service – it’s a nice gesture, it shows we care about Big T, but we’re not talking big bucks here anymore. Maybe there was talk of that last year, but the current proposal is pretty weak tea.

So it’s corporate welfare, but Twitter won’t benefit too much from it. Is this really going to keep Twitter here? And if they end up staying, how do you know they based their big decision on such a small amount of money?

2. “Love your stuff, Twitter babe, too bad about that whole hacking thing a while back, yep them passwords, OMG, really? – she just flew up from Hollywood and she’s in your office right now? that’s swell, hey we’re going to miss you if you all actually decide to leave us, let us know if you need a temporary permit for the moving trucks or whatnot. Bon courage, gotta go…“

And then somebody else would move into that space at Third and Folsom. You see how that works?

Does the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development “pay for itself?” Nope.

Does the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development “create jobs?” Nope.

Does the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development have the competency to pick winners and losers? Nope.